Year of the Bible 2003 gains momentum

EUROPE — Initiatives taking place under the banner of the Year of the Bible 2003 are starting to bring the Bible alive in new ways for people from many different backgrounds in French- and German-speaking Europe.

Following extensive preparations (see World Report 373/4), the aims of Year of the Bible – to encourage people to “Seek. And Find” and to show them that the Bible is relevant to contemporary life – are now being put into practice through projects designed to engage groups including children, teenagers, library users and radio listeners.

Children

In Germany, for example, the Bible Society is running a mobile Family Stories exhibition (see World Report 375/42), while 6,000 groups, representing 120,000 children aged between eight and 13, have registered to participate in the Bible Discovery Tour, designed to bring together children of different backgrounds. Teensmag is encouraging its readers, along with other young people alerted through newspaper and radio advertisements, to write their favourite Bible verse on a CD and send it in. The CDs will then be assembled in the shape of a cross which will initially be displayed at Easter outside a church close to the magazine’s offices in Witten but will then, it is hoped, be moved around other locations for a few weeks at a time.

Special stamp

A special Year of the Bible stamp was issued on January 16, while between March and October enthusiastic cyclists can participate in a sponsored ride to raise money for children’s projects in Africa, Asia, Central America and Eastern Europe.

The key publicity tool in German-speaking countries is Bibel-Magazin, of which 212,000 copies had been supplied by mid-February. This publication has a number of potential uses, including distribution within the local community through places such as surgeries, libraries and hotels and handing out to schoolchildren as part of religious education lessons. The Internet is also proving a valuable tool for disseminating information: in addition to the dedicated Year of the Bible web sites, in mid-February the search engine Google carried 24,400 further pages which made reference to it.

In France, the launch of the Year of the Bible was marked on January 26 by a television programme entitled Regards sur la Bible (‘A Look at the Bible’). This programme, made by France Télévision at the offices of the French Bible Society, looked at various old Bibles, restoration work on a 1495 Latin Bible, Bibles in other languages and publishing and distribution work.

Communicate

In French-speaking countries, however, the first six months of the Year of the Bible will mainly be devoted to working with the churches to secure their commitment and plan ways in which they can communicate effectively with their local community.

The national management committee for the Year of the Bible in France is providing churches with resources to enable them to rise to the challenge of distributing a total of 30,000 Bibles, 100,000 New Testaments and 200,000 Gospels during 2003. In addition, 100,000 “Seek. And Find” boxes containing a New Testament in français courant, a video of the Jesus film and a brochure giving Bible reading tips are being made available, as are 300,000 diglot French/Arabic New Testaments, 500,000 Selections and one million leaflets encouraging Bible reading.